Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing

Understanding your customers:

What is inbound marketing? ‘Inbound Marketing’ is a smart strategy that pulls in customers by making them feel valued and giving them a choice to be part of the buying process. It’s safe to say that inbound methods instil a sense of free will and value within the customers. Not a bad way to start off your marketing!

Focusing on SEO won’t hurt either. In essence, your customers can avail paid search help and access blog content or infographics whenever they want. Since inbound marketing focuses on quality content, it’s likely that putting your company out there will attract the right kind of customers. Companies believe that it’s a wiser move to opt for maximum inbound marketing instead of outbound marketing. This is primarily because experts see ‘outbound marketing’ as functional but questionable, especially with regards to efficacy and gaining immediate leads.

‘Outbound marketing’ adopts a more active strategy to reach out to potential customers. Instead of creating the illusion of free will and passive communication, outbound marketing dives right into the customer’s inbox with a generalized advertising approach. Let’s be real, none of us like being annoyed with emails that barely acknowledge our surname. Outbound marketing is about putting your company out there and is typically done through:

We’ve all been spammed with marketing emails that start off with boring intro paragraphs innumerable times! Instead of feeling a spark of interest in their product/service, we usually mark these emails as ‘read’ and move onto more personalized emails.

Inbound emails make an effort to get familiar with their customers and know who they really are. This creates a sense of communicative connection between marketer and buyer and makes the customer feel important. This could lead to a stronger and more long-lasting relationship between the company and customer.

Breakdown of Inbound vs Outbound Marketing

The difference between inbound vs outbound marketing is easily reflected through the paradoxical phrase: “Permission vs Interruption marketing.” This is the easiest way to understand opposite strategies that both marketing approaches make use of.

Inbound marketing consists of a gradual and rather easy going approach, where customers are allowed to connect with the company based on whether they’re interested or not.

In comparison, outbound marketing is about throwing out information, emails and advertising services/products to a large audience. While it lacks an audience-centric approach, outbound marketing is effective for spreading your business’s message out far and wide.

Modes of Inbound Marketing:

Social Media: This includes any and every social platform that your company can utilize. It would be a shocker if a company offering an authentic product/service doesn’t have a Facebook page. These days, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora and Reddit are platforms that marketers are well acquainted with. This allows potential customers to access infographics and relevant content that they might need in order to begin the ‘buying process.’

Blog posts: Are there any authentic businesses out there that do not have a blog? Well, that depends on what you would describe as authentic and the service/product they’re providing. It has a lot to do with the target customers too. Most registered companies these days have a blog. In the marketing world, having a blog signifies the company’s focal areas and knowledge about growing trends and potential customers. It’s an opportunity for customers to assure themselves of what they’re ‘getting into.’ Indirectly, this is a form of communication which allows the customer to feel in control of his/her choice.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the mother of online success. Okay, this might be an exaggeration… but it has a lot to do with target goals. The use of keywords and your company’s language preferences matters a lot! It determines how many times you show up in ‘Google’ search. The more, the better. It gives you a higher chance of being out there and reaching out to more customers. SEO is used as a tool for increasing inbound sales.

Email Newsletter: This is a way of staying connected with the customer. It involves getting monthly updates on new deals, discounts or even company progress.

E-books: E-books did not exist two decades ago. Now, they’re everywhere! Wattpad unleashed the trend of e-books, and luckily enough companies have climbed the bandwagon and are coming out with e-books about their business philosophy and marketing epiphanies. Have you kept track of the number of recent e-books about inbound vs outbound sales? You will have a wide array of e-book choices if you’re keen on finding out more about inbound vs outbound marketing.

Modes of Outbound Marketing:

Cold emails: Outbound marketing is already known as a traditional tool for promoting products/services. It’s all about sending out a targeted email to your prospects about relevant products/services. It doesn’t matter whether they’re interested or not, all that matters is that you reach the maximum number of prospects.

Cold calls: Cold calls are also a huge part of outbound marketing. They function in a similar way, where you promote your company and its services by calling people you might see as ‘potential customers.’ Clearly, outbound marketing is more about disseminating information, it’s usually seen as a strategy that gives the marketer an upper hand.

Both inbound and outbound marketing is part of the ‘marketing world.’ However, both carry their own pros and cons with regard to the amount of time, value and energy invested. Inbound marketing has been a highly opted strategy in the past decade, but that doesn’t mean outbound marketing will ever go out of style.